End of the summer season

Phew, at last I have caught up with blogging about our summer adventures. We finished off with our usual weekend at Cromford Mill for Heritage Open Days, which was quieter than previous years but still lots of fun, and of course, we have demonstrated every month with The Arkwright Spinsters, also at Cromford.

We did have chance to squeeze in a few day out for ourselves too, we visited Hope Show in Derbyshire at the end of August and enjoyed catching up with lots of friends that we hadn't seen lately.

We also went up to Masham Sheep Fair for a look around, I always like to see what has been entered in the spinning competitions in the Town Hall. We bumped into a friend of ours who was showing some of her sheep and of course we had to watch a Sheep Show, and find a few minutes to chat to Richard.

I have also been working on lots of commmission jobs through the year, plus making new items which I will have out for sale at next years events, if they haven't all been snapped up before then. I have also found the time to do a lot more experimenting with natural dyes recently, something I have dabbled in for a while but never had the time to really play around with. I have been getting much better results after a few tips from a friend of mine who does a lot of dyeing.

The diary for next year is filling up fast, it looks like we will be out at more places than ever. I have also been working on a few exciting new projects, news about some of them will be publised here in the coming weeks, so please keep checking back.

Easter Weekend

The demonstration season seems to be coming around again. The Murmuring Wheel and I had a busy three days over Easter at two very different but very enjoyable events.

Easter Saturday we had been invited to the "Spring Fling" at Hatton Church in Lincolnshire, organised by
The Invitation.

The day started off rainy, but that didn't put off the visitors, in fact for such a small village, the turnout was amazing. As we were in Lincolnshire, we had decided that it would be appropriate to be spinning Lincoln Longwool fleece ( kindly supplied by Sharon of Greengate Wools) which many local people noticed. We had a really nice day, thanks to Margaret and Sheila for inviting us and hope we can come back again soon.

Easter Sunday and Monday we represented The Arkwright Spinsters at a Georgian Re-enactment and Living History event at Cromford Mill in Derbyshire. We were right up on the top floor of the main mill, which was new for us as we are more used to being on the ground floor of the wharf building, just across the road from the mill. Being so high up gave us a great view of what was happening in the mill yard though.





We thought that being up on the top floor, we wouldn't get many visitors, but were surprised at just how many people came in, partly due, on the Sunday, to David, the tour guide, bringing his tour groups in to see the spinning process. The other exhibitions in the same building as us were fascinating, unfortunately I didn't get to see as much as I would have liked.

Me, looking busy...........

So, a good start to our summer demonstrations, fingers crossed that the rest of the year goes this well.